It’s an argument that Leavers keep trotting out. I heard David Davis on BBC Any Questions repeat it only yesterday, 20th September 2019.
It goes like this: the public voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. First, in the 2016 Referendum. Second, in the 2017 General Election, in which over 80% of votes were for parties “respecting the referendum”. And thirdly, in the 2019 EU elections, in which the Brexit Party won most seats.
There’s a technical term for this argument: it’s bullshit.
THE 2016 REFERENDUM
First, the 2016 Referendum was won on a wafer-thin majority, of 51.89% to 48.11%. That is not “overwhelming”. In a town hall meeting of 101 people, 49 of them would have been Remain. In such a show of hands, you’d be hard pressed to conclude anything but division, right down the middle. No conclusion; no decision to be inferred; no action to be taken.
Of course the referendum wasn’t just close, it was bent. Many were excluded from the franchise (including many UK citizens living abroad, and EU citizens living in the UK – all of whom are in the direct firing line of any Brexit policy). The Leave campaigns broke the law, harvested our data with the help of Cambridge Analytica, and funded their dark ops with money sourced from god knows where. Over a billion Facebook ads were “dropped” in the days before the vote, and we don’t know much about them because they were tailored, but it’s safe to guess that they were as honest as the lie on the side of the Leave campaign’s bus. Investigations are ongoing.
THE 2017 GENERAL ELECTION
What about the General Election of 2017? Over 80% of us voted for parties supporting Brexit. Isn’t that the mandate to trump all mandates? It’s true that Labour talked a positive talk on Brexit. But they have famously equivocated, trying to hold their Remain supporters on-side. Many, or probably most, Labour voters did so while holding their noses on the party’s Brexit stance. They voted Labour for many reasons, but not for Labour’s Brexit position. They voted Labour because they hoped the Brexit stance would change, or because their local MP assured them that it would, or because they had no decent local alternative, or because they were tribally Labour, or because they valued Labour’s policies on matters not related to Brexit, or because they were loyal to a hard-working incumbent MP. I was one such voter. You may NOT count my vote as a pro-Brexit vote.
If you want further evidence of support for or against Brexit, hold a Brexit referendum, not a General Election. (A fair, inclusive, legal and honest one this time, please.) The General Election results of 2017 tell us next to nothing about popular support for Brexit.
THE 2019 EU ELECTIONS
What about the big win for the Brexit Party in the 2019 EU elections?
The Brexit Party won a whopping 29 seats and 31.6% of the vote. Impressive.
But was that an overwhelming vote for Brexit? Combined with the Tories’ 9.1%, the pro-Brexit vote was 40.7%.
Voters’ support for Labour MEP candidates like Seb Dance, who had demonstrated great commitment to our membership of the EU, cannot be added to that 40.7%. 40.7% does not constitute a majority.
The 2019 EU Elections did not show a majority for Brexit.
The 2017 General Election doesn’t tell us anything about popular Brexit support.
The 2016 Referendum – bent, bought and restricted – delivered an inconclusive verdict.
When you hear the likes of David Davis peddling the lie that the people voted “not once, not twice, but three times” for Brexit, you could be forgiven for asking yourself why, three years on, the lie is even necessary. Shouldn’t the supposed mandate be irrelevant by now, as we contemplate the coming-to-bloom of those much-vaunted Brexit opportunities? Shouldn’t we be readying ourselves for our moment in the sun, our arrival on the global political stage, our imminent economic dominance, our glorious freedom? The question of why we’re doing this, and on what basis, should long ago have been forgotten and displaced by the heady scent of obvious benefits, just around the corner.
Or is this “once, twice, three times a lady” argument the only song the David Davises of this world have left to sing?